Dell India Pvt. Ltd. — Zero Service

MAIL AS SENT FOR COMPLAIN TO DELL INDIA..

"Hello Sir/Madam,

I am Abhinav Krishna. The service tag no. for my Inspiron laptop is 7VJH1BS. I am sending this mail to let you know the kind of difficulty and mental torture that I had to face while dealing with your customer service dept.
First of all, let me clearly explain what exactly happened. On the 11th of this month my laptop stopped working. Next day, as it as Saturday, I could not contact to customer care to convey them about my problem. On Monday morning I talked to a gentleman, Mr. Prem and told him what exactly I was facing as the problem. After a very brief talk that gentleman made me completely surprised by advising me to take my laptop to any near by computer shop and to get its hard disc memory out and take a back-up of all those data that this system must be having. I asked him very clearly that would you like me to go to any road side shop when my laptop was very much in warranty period. He clearly said to me that there was no other option I had.
So, here comes my first question. Do you agree with what your technical support executive suggested to me? What kind of warranty you provide? Had it been any other company’s laptop and had I gone in any non authorized shop to get my laptop checked, the company would have simply ended my warranty agreement. And I think that’s the right practice followed by any reputed company. They all help their customers to solve their problems as simply as it could be from their own end. And thinking about your reputation and brand standard I bought this laptop and what the I am being advised on the very first incidence of facing any real problem. Do you call it a warranty? Suppose that shopkeeper would have done something irresponsible, then would you have not made any move to close the warranty?

Any way, I, taking a risk went to a near by shop. I did not let him do too many things. After observing a little, he suggested me that it was not a software issue; the problem might be in some hardware may be in hard disc. He told me that I would have to incur an expense of almost 7 to 800 bucks and all the things would be brought to normal. That was when I felt disgusted and made up my mind to request for an engineer’s visit. Next time, on last Friday I talked to a lady, Miss. Dandya. She straight away refused to take my request for engineer’s visit and told me clearly that she was in the capacity to take the request and I should better do exactly what I was suggested. That was more than enough to ignite my fire. I told her to pass line to her senior. A gentleman, Mr. Anil talked to me and noted all the problems. He promised to arrange for the engineer’s visit on the very next day, on Saturday. He took some time to confirm the availability of engineer for the visit and after some time he promised me in very clear words that I would get a call first and then one of your engineers would visit my place on Saturday. He assured me hundred percent for the visit. But next day, I kept on waiting for the whole damn day, I left my coaching classes and some damn important works for it. But neither did I get any call nor any engineer visited my place. I felt like helpless because I could not even contact to customer service because it being a Saturday. On Monday I called again. After explaining him all the problem again I requested him to arrange for a call back as soon as Mr. Anil comes to the office because I wanted to speak to him. It felt strange as it was around 11.30 am and your employee was not in the office. But today it is Thursday passing and I am still to get any kinda call from that gentleman.

Here comes the second question. Is the HR management of your company is so pathetic that you end up hiring so irresponsible persons… that too for senior positions? Or is it the system that is so rotten that you give a damn about the problems that your customer might be facing? Who would be responsible for my missed coaching classes which cost me a good 750 bucks per class. Who would be responsible for the mental frustration that I was put under because of this so irritating behavior? Why the hell Mr. Anil should be penalized for this irresponsibility?

Today, on Thursday when engineer came, it was around 11.30 am. I had specially instructed in the very beginning to send engineer either on Saturday or before 11 am in the morning on any week days. As per the engineer, the problem was not that big. He made it alright within half an hr. he himself suggested that I should make some partition drive so that if in the future the same kinda problem comes then at least my data should not get affected. When I told him to do that, he said that he was not paid for it and so he won’t do it. For this to be done, I will have to talk to customer service again and then any thing would be possible. The reaction followed by me was, [censored]..! Any way he did his work and made my laptop run. As per him, the problem was coming in the real media player that was corrupt. And because I might have used it directly without starting the laptop, the system hanged and in the future also if I repeat the same thing then it would happen again. So he suggested me to take a back up of memory and then reinstall the operating system and all to get the laptop on right track. That’s it.

Before telling all this, I should have explained you the kind of frustration that the customer goes to get access to technical support people. Sir, have you yourself ever tried calling to this department on telephone. I bet, you would either throw your own cell phone into water or would slap the responsible authority for this kind of completely shameless and rotten management. You say that you help your customer on telephone itself for many small-small problems. But do you expect your customer to keep the cell phone holding to their ears for more than half an hr, at times for almost an hr and then to speak to any person. All the times when I called to Dell, I had to face this head burning exercise of keeping my attention to my cell phone. At the time of buying I was not put under any waiting mode, not for even a minute. And now when I am facing this problem, I am being told to keep on waiting for an hr on phone just to get access to a person. And this is happening when I bought the laptop being an employee of CAPITAL IQ, which operates in a huge business with Dell. This all must be present in your record. Is this the service that Dell promises? If yes, which seems true now, then I am completely sad and disappointed upon my decision of buying this laptop. And I promise you from my heart that in my wildest dream I wont suggest any body to go for Dell explaining them all the problems and frustrations they would invite along with the colorful laptop.


I request and expect a proper explanation for all this irregularity and a report about what action did you take against all responsible persons, the name of whom I have mentioned in this mail. Also, how I am going to be compensated for all the torture and frustration that your people forced me to go under. Obviously I would expect a prompt reply for this afford of mine. And I hope you would also introspect and repair your own loopholes that are blackening the standard you are trying to establish in the market for yourself.


Thanks & Regards.

Abhinav Krishna
Service tag no. 7VJH1BS
[protected]"

Last week my Dell computer suffered a virus attack and I decided to use my reinstallation disc, but for an unknown reason I couldn’t accomplish the task. I then called Dell’s number to obtain assistance.

After 30 minutes or so with the first person in India to which I spoke, I was asked to give them a credit card number and be charged a $129 fee in order that my problem be resolved. I was referred to several different people and finally a technician told me that in order to be helped he would have to consult his manuals and would call me back In 30 minutes.

I never heard from him again.

I then checked with Citibank who is the issuer of my credit card and found Dell had indeed charged me for a service I never received. I then called a local computer expert who, after checking, advised that my hard drive would have to be replaced and all programs reloaded. He returned my computer this Monday and charged me $315.

I have emailed the service people and they have flatly refused to issue a credit for the service I never received. This is so patently unfair that I then decided to write to Dallas to appeal this shoddy treatment.

To-day Saturday Jan 9. 2009. I called Dell's support 800 line for some help in Scanning & uploading my two 4"x 5" photo prints to my Dell Desk top PC. After waiting for half an hour Hitesh, insisted he would first have to run a test on both my Printer and PC, before giving me the necessary information. Unfortunately, i agreed to what he originally said would only take half an hour. He never once even tried to assist me with the uploading issue. Instead he kept me on the phone for four hours, while he waisted a lot of time, trying to sell me high priced unecessary Insurance and other things all of which I repeatedly refused. When, I question him, why was it necessary for him to continue to go over everything in my PC & Printer when absolutely nothing was wrong, with them and all I was seeking was technical advise. He continued to give me a deliberate run around, saying that it was necessary to go over everything, and I should unplug this and unplug that. Then when I started getting annoyed and was still refusing his high pressure sales tatics and threatened to expose there scam, he ended everything and hung up on me.
Is this really the way that Dell has trained their representatives to treat their customers after one has purchased their products? I definetly will never ever purchase another Dell product and will certainly always tell every one of my bad experiences I' have had with then whenever I called.